46 comments:

CarolWhat a sweet and wonderful post! How original and creative you are. I want to collect these things too...clever clever you! I love the receipts. Especially the 12 euro one for hot chocolate. Though as you know is a small price to pay to sit in one of the most beautiful places in Paris.

Nice loot! Very colorful and inspirational. Would like to see what the $12- Chocolate place in Paris is all about with you and Corey. I collect the same kind of stuff. I like it. Believe it or not I save Gelato spoons too. I use them to eat yogert. Have a delicious day!

I like to collect these types of souvenirs too, and they don't take up so much room in my baggage. I place them where I can see them frequently (without getting the place too messy) to remind me of those good memories. My European mother used to do this, that's how I picked up the habit.

12euros for a cup of hot chocolate, in current Australian money is around $6AUD, which is quite a lot! Coffee/chocolate prices are around $2-3AUD per cup, depending where you go.

I love great collections of "minor memorabilia" or "fiddle-faddle", important to the collector only but usually worthless to others. The Italians have a beautiful word for this kind of frippery, "cianfrusaglie". I use it even for files on my computer, synonym or short for "while others may not recognize the importance of these documents, for me they are priceless". The same goes for boxes of my prized collections. :-)

A friend of mine used to collect "the bags" that are ready at your service on airplanes, in the pocket of the seat in front of you. Until about ten years ago, they were printed with beautiful logos of the airlines, and other illustrations. She treats her collection like art, framed in a poster size frame, at a location appropriate to their original intendes use. Hers are in a vergin state, of course. :-)

P.S.:Do I need to mention that Vienna is quite a treasure trove for all kinds of the goodies we love? *enticing smile*

My diaries over the years have filled up with these little treasures you mention here. I still regret though that I did not take more Laduree napkins last time I was in Paris. Love that sage green! Maybe you can bring me some next time you go ;).....happy writing and snapping.

I collect paper napkins like yours, have since I was a child, as well as wrappers of sugar cubes. I have got shoeboxes filled. My mom on the other hand keeps all the ribbons and plastic/paper bags...what is it with us Frenchies?About the fraises tagada, I had fpund your post while doing some link research for my post, so if you scroll down it is at the bottom.

In my "memory box" from my trip to Paris, I have a receipt for some souveniers I bought for friends, the tag from my luggage, a wrapper from some chocolates...I now see I am not alone! How wonderful to have such trifles trigger such rich memories for us all.

I do collect such things, I keep them for a good while and eventually I get rid of them !?!

I also read your link (your post written last August)and was to tell you the French word for "sticker" but blogger Jen has done it...Still, the word "sticker" can do - everybody knows it here.You can stick to it if you wish !

I am a collector of business cards and receipts! I love being able to remember years later where I went to have that _____(fill in the blank). I would love to collect those cute pastry boxes...but I fear I'd crush them in my luggage!

You are hilarious - collecting l'additions and napkins! I do like the ribbons, though. They're very useful in art projects and in a pinch, for wrapping a package. As for les autocollants, I took a bunch of photos of the windows full of same at Le Bon Marche yesterday. Will post them within the next couple of days.

I see how you use the stickers you come home with, but what does one *do* with the rest? There's only so much room (and interest) in the travel journal... I brought home a number of papery items from Italy (although my receipts are not nearly as pretty as yours!) and am just looking at the pile of them. I can see drowning-in-ephemera as a very real future possibility!

beautiful photographs as always. I love your blogs. I've done this too - collected beautiful shop bags and yes, guilty too of collecting paper napkins from restaurants and tea-rooms. I still have momentoes from Gili's in Florence (well same name!).

What a TERRIFIC post! I had to laugh. It's amazing what we come home with from travels. I completely get it. Especially that adorable bag with the baker flipping breads. Yes, those little choses quotidiens that make the French so....French. Love it!

Carol, I thought of you when I bought some postcards yesterday at Demel's (after having had a breakfast of the most delicious cherry strudel and melange), and the sweet lady there put my three cards in one of those small pretty paper Demel bags, I could have hugged her! Then I audaciously asked for a business card (I'll mail it with one of the cards *g*), but stopped myself before asking for an autocollant. Enough's enough. ;-)

Hi,It's very funny for the French girl I am to look at the pictures of your little treasures ;-), in the sense that whith me, obviously they end up in the trash can. But you're right some of them are quite pretty, like Ladurée's factures. Don't you collect bottles' caps too ? But i have to say that when I saw that you paid 12 E for a café i felt pity for you, but whatever, paris will always be paris. Have a good day !

Oh I love this post!! I thought it was just me who compulsively collects little trinkets from places I visit! I too have a collection of till slips (I hate the ones on heat-sensitive paper that fade, grrrr), packets, sugar cubes or wrappers, napkins, ticket stubs... you name it, each of them a dear friend and a reminder of something wonderful.

dear carol, i love this post, everything about it...not least of all, for the simple reason that now i live in the comfort of knowing i'm not the only person who saves her sweet wrappers! but what i really want to know is, how you store/organise what must be an enormous (and growing) collection? i have no doubt it must be some truly artful why-didn't-i-think-of-that system!

I "lerve" your collections!So where do you keep them - stuffed in a draw somewhere - or casually strewn around your home, trying not to look too obvious that you have been to the most fabulous places known to mankind?!

Great post! I do the same when I travel--I save museum billets, coasters in restaurants, I even still have a menu I took from a cafe in Paris when I was about 16!! (You should see the prices on it in the '70s! These are all great.

Paris Letters

♥carol gillott♥

l'Ile Saint Louis, Paris, Ile de France, France

Hi I'm Carol Gillott,
My Mom taught me watercolors at 5. I'm still at it, now tripping over cobblestones, living in a 6th-floor garret on l'Ile Saint-Louis, Paris. Read Parisbreakfast with a hot chocolate and croissant.
I paint Paris breakfasts.